A problem that arises generally in a distributed computer environment and that may be particularly acute in an enterprise context is that, typically, there are a number of different applications in use. These applications may have been developed at multiple times, by multiple different developers or entities (e.g., by different groups in an enterprise). Accordingly, these applications may likely have differences in look and feel, resulting in an appearance and function that is not cohesive in nature.
For example, different applications may require different logins or perform user authentication in a different manner. Additionally, such applications may not appear (“look”) or function (“feel”) the same. This situation leads to inefficiency in the use of such application as each application must be individually learned and accessed and the functionality of such applications is siloed such that functionality or data associated with one application is inaccessible when using another application.
It is desired, therefore, to provide some level of integration to heterogeneous applications in a distributed computing environment such as an enterprise so the applications included in that environment may have a similar look and feel, and functionality or data from one application may be provided to a user even when the user may be in the context of a different application.